Shutter Island (2010)

5/5

Martin Scorsese's Shutter Island is everything I didn't know I wanted. It is beautiful, uplifting, disturbing, sad, and compelling. It may not be what you expect the movie to be, but it is everything that a movie should be. The plot follows US Marshalls Teddy Daniels (DiCaprio) and Chuck Aule (Ruffalo) on Shutter Island, home to a prison for the criminally insane. A patient has gone missing, having apparently evaporated through the walls of her cell, and they are tasked with finding her. They are welcomed by unhelpful security guards and menacing psychiatrists (Kingsley, von Sydow). They dig deeper and deeper into the mysteries of the island--the fortified Ward C for the most dangerous patients, the solitary lighthouse surrounded by an electric fence--but the truth just barely eludes them at every turn.

The movie is not typical in any sense of the word. It bears some resemblance to noir in thematics and cinematics, but it uses blinding whites instead of pitch blacks. It shows us his traumatic past in fragmented visuals instead of linear storytelling. Its labyrinthine mysteries take on new dimensions in the physical, mental, and spiritual realms. The visuals are reminiscent of Kubrick's The Shining, but the traditional Hollywood horror aspect is muted to allow the unnerving psychological dysfunction to haunt us. It tugs us between pity and awe, hatred and sympathy, for the ill patients and their past acts. It asks us how we would treat them. And then it flips everything on its head and asks us all those same questions again.

This is a movie where the acting complicates the written characters in the best possible way. This is not a simple movie, and none of the personas within it are simple either. They are alive and breathing. And they hide secrets from the camera that we are never meant to know. The editing is equally complex: it takes flashbacks to a new level and it does so with simplicity and expert craft instead of gimmicks and CGI. This film shows a director, an actor, and an editor all at the top of their form. And I hope they just keep getting better and better.

IMDb link: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1130884/

Synecdoche, New York (2008)

2/5

Synecdoche, New York follows Philip Seymour Hoffman as a theatre director who receives a "genius" scholarship that allows him the freedom to realize his lifelong theatrical vision without any financial distractions. He decides to makes a play with a universal message; he wants it to be about everything and everyone. He replicates New York City in a gigantic warehouse with millions of extras. Eventually, he starts casting actors to play the people in his own life, including himself, as he watches them. And it just gets weirder and weirder from there. Helming this bizarre, surreal pic is Charlie Kaufman himself, the brilliant writer behind Being John Malkovich, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, and Adaptation. I don't know what goes on in Kaufman's head, but I want nothing more to do with it unless a skilled director is tempering it to something comprehensible. Because this whole production was just a confusing mess.

The movie's one saving grace was its humor. It was ubiquitous and off the charts. Even when I was frustrated and annoyed by the film's seeming impenetrable complexity and nebulous thematics, Kaufman's writing could still make me laugh. And that's really the ony positive thing I have to say about this movie. I do not ever want to see another movie that Charlie Kaufman both writes and directs. Ever.

IMDb link: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0383028/

The Station Agent (2003)

4/5

The Station Agent is a movie that's easy to dislike. It's a slice of life movie about a lonely dwarf who enjoys his solitude. But somehow the movie managed to engage me at all the right moments. I was just about to lose interest when something different and unconventional happened. The writing and acting in this movie is phenomenal; the characters are fully fleshed-out and three-dimensional. I especially liked how side characters came back repeatedly, but in a different light from how they were introduced. Also, the music made the movie. If it weren't for the original score, I quite possibly might have hated this movie.

I thought some of the scenes tried much too hard to accomplish their goal. For example, when the woman almost runs over the dwarf the second time; when the dwarf yells in the bar for everyone to look at him; and when he falls on the train tracks and feels like killing himself. Some scenes just weren't that believable and feel scripted (really obvious because of the otherwise stellar script). Another thing: there is an incredibly powerful and emotional moment when he must walk away in shame and embarrassment from protecting a girl because his size prevents him from helping. But the movie doesn't fully explore this moment and the feeling just sort of dips off and dies. All things considered, though, I really enjoyed this movie. It's not exactly slow and it's not exactly boring, but you probably won't like it if you can't stand slow, boring movies. It's hard to tell, and it varies from person to person. But if you like slice of life stories, you might want to give this a try.

IMDb link: http://imdb.com/title/tt0340377/